The present invention is generally related to a cleaner kit for an inkjet printer and is more particularly related to a specially prepared medium which is inserted in the paper path of a printer and an operational program for the printer which causes the print cartridge and associated carriage mechanism to wipe across the specially prepared medium in a way which removes accumulated ink, fibers, and other trapped debris.
Simply stated, inkjet printers operate by expelling a small volume of ink through a plurality of small orifices in an orifice plate held in proximity to a paper or other medium upon which printing or marks are to be placed. These orifices are arranged in a fashion in the orifice plate such that the expulsion of droplets of ink from a selected number of orifices relative to a particular position of the medium results in the production of a portion of a desired character or image. Controlled repositioning of the orifice plate or the medium followed by another expulsion of ink droplets results in the creation of more segments of the desired character or image. Furthermore, inks of various colors may be coupled to individual arrangements of orifices so that selected firing of the orifices can produce a multi-colored image by the inkjet printer.
Several mechanisms have been employed to create the force necessary to expel an ink droplet from a printhead, among which are thermal, piezoelectric and electrostatic mechanisms. While the following explanation is made with reference to a thermal inkjet expulsion mechanism, the present invention may have application for the other ink expulsion mechanisms as well.
Expulsion of the ink droplet in a conventional thermal inkjet printer is a result of rapid thermal heating of the ink to a temperature that exceeds the boiling point of the ink solvent to create a vapor phase bubble of ink. Such rapid heating of the ink is generally achieved by passing a pulse of electric current, typically for a few microseconds, through an ink ejector that is typically an individually addressable heater resistor. The heat generated thereby is applied to a small volume of ink held in an enclosed area associated with the heater resistor and which is generally referred to as a firing chamber. For a printhead, there are a plurality of heater resistors and associated firing chambersxe2x80x94perhaps numbering in the hundredsxe2x80x94each of which can be uniquely addressed and caused to eject ink upon command by the printer. The heater resistors are deposited in a semiconductor substrate and are electrically connected to external circuitry by way of metalization deposited on the semiconductor substrate. Further, the heater resistors and metalization may be protected from chemical attack and mechanical abrasion by one or more layers of hard and non-reactive passivation. Additional description of basic printhead structure may be found in xe2x80x9cThe Second-Generation Thermal Inkjet Structurexe2x80x9d by Ronald Askeland, et al. in the Hewlett-Packard Journal, August 1988, pages 28-31. Thus, one of the boundary walls of each firing chamber consists of the semiconductor substrate (and typically one firing resistor). Another of the boundary walls of the firing chamber, disposed opposite the semiconductor substrate in one common implementation, is formed by a foraminous orifice plate. Generally, each of the orifices in this orifice plate is arranged in relation to a heater resistor in a manner in which enables ink to be directly expelled from the orifice. As the ink vapor nucleates at the heater resistor and expands, it displaces a volume of ink which forces a lesser volume of ink out of the orifice for deposition of the medium. The bubble then collapses and the displaced volume of ink is replenished from a larger ink reservoir by way of an ink feed channel in one of the boundary walls of the firing chamber.
Not all of the expelled ink leaves the print cartridge and is deposited upon the medium, however. A small quantity of ink remains on the print head in puddles in the area near the ejecting orifices. Also, small satellite droplets and aerosols that separate from the main drop can remain airborne for a period of time before setting, undesirably, on surfaces within the printer.
Conventionally, inkjet printers are fitted with a device termed a service station, which among other things, wipes debris and puddled ink off of the printhead on a regular basis. Even though cleaning operations are regularly and automatically undertaken by the printer, ink residue will accumulate within the printer. See, for example xe2x80x9cPrint Cartridge Fixturing and Maintenance in the HP DeskJet 1200c Printerxe2x80x9d by Michael T. Dangelo et al. Hewlett-Packard Journal, February 1994, pp. 67-71 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,300,958, xe2x80x9cMethod and Apparatus For Automatically Cleaning the Printhead of a Thermal Inkjet Cartridgexe2x80x9d. Despite this cleaning effort, a print head service station may not be able to clean accumulated ink and debris from all surfaces of the print cartridge or its carriage and transport mechanism. With the passage of time the debris builds up on cartridge and carriage mechanism to an extent that print quality can suffer ill effects from the debris. One common degredation which has been observed is the dragging by the carriage of fibers accumulated in the debris through recently printed (and wet) ink drops on the medium. The resultant print is one which includes an undesirable trace of ink passing through the printed material.
A cleaner for an inkjet printer includes a sheet medium having first and second sides, a sheet feed edge, and two side edges. A first strip of material having a napped surface is affixed to the first side of the sheet medium, disposed longitudinally between the two side edges, and disposed parallel to and a first predetermined distance from the sheet feed edge.